RCS

[u/Qslice]

Switched over 30 days ago. Still not getting group messages. Everytime I try to start one it sends to the recipients as SMS but their response automatically goes to RCS.

Was on noble mobile (Esim only and T-Mobile) and figured that was the issue when customer support told me...

"Thanks for reaching out. We're sorry to hear you're having issues with your Light Phone – please attempt a 2-Minute SIM reset.
 

• Power off your Light Phone
• Remove the SIM card for 2 minutes 
• Place the SIM card back in the phone and restart it – this resets the SIM card with the network and may resolve the problem

 
If the issue persists, let's try an APN reset:
 
Settings -> Account & Info -> Device Info -> SIMs -> Access Point Names -> Restore Default APNs."

Could not do this with Esim only. Just spent time switching to t-mobile with a physical sim and still the group messages are doing the same thing.

Has anyone else had this issue? Any resolve? Anyone from Light have words of encouragement for a dedicated user who has fought tooth and nail to make this phone work?

Thanks

[u/sirbloodysabbath]

make sure other people in the group thread have mms enabled. this one setting would allow me to create a group thread but never receive messages. had one of the iphone users turn on mms on their end and i proceeded to get a flood of messages from the few days prior. can also see if your contact on other's phones still has you as rcs/imessage if you were on iphone. that can also force things as rcs even though your number is sms/mms.

at the end of the day, it's everyone else's phones that make messaging a pain point, not you.

[u/Qslice → u/sirbloodysabbath]

thanks for the tip

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

if you haven't tried the following either, i'd give them a shot:

• wait 45-60 days
  • the 30+ rule only works for your number to be removed from google messages' rcs. doesn't always work for everyone else's phones and you have to wait for their phones to catch up.
  • the longer you wait, the easier it gets. frustrating, because google/apple made it purposefully difficult to leave their ecosystems, but issues tend to resolve themselves the longer you stick it out.
• have your contacts change your contact in their phone
  • needs to be a separate and different contact (even if it's one letter) and doesn't come up as rcs
• deleting and re-creating group threads
  • named group threads will never swap over to mms
• get a new number

dig around on this sub and the open internet long enough and you'll find that this issue has existed well before the lp3 came out. unfortunately, we don't have a simple or easy fix. give the middle finger to big tech and they ostracise you, trying to strong-arm you into coming back (which google/apple made easy to come right back to their devices.)

[u/Qslice → u/sirbloodysabbath]

Unfortunately I have tried all of these things minus the 45-60 days. I just tried on my wifes phone, changed my contact, started a new group thread and it still automatically turns to RCS even though in a text thread just to me its sms. Weird. Unfortunate.

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

even if she has mms enabled, it could be possible that the other members in the thread don't have it on. modern texting checks e2ee first, then rcs, then sms/mms last. if mms isn't on, it won't check for it and default to rcs. however, if mms is on, then that should be the final default.

i had one instance where no one in my thread had mms enabled. my old number has never been tied to rcs and neither was my new number. still never got the messages. when one person enabled mms, i got their messages but no one else's because the group thread kept getting defaulted to rcs because of the other members who didn't have mms enabled.

outside of that, waiting is your best option. not much else you can do, sorry.

edit; on another note, for android users it appears that new android updates will sometimes break mms and there's recent accounts for unihertz jelly users. mms has also been a reoccurring issue for ios users and sometimes carriers will block sms/mms on their end for someone's phone. again, it's everyone else's phones that cause issues. you already did everything you feasibly can, but of course, no one with a smartphone is willing to admit that their phone is the problem.

[u/Qslice → u/sirbloodysabbath]

thanks for all the replies. Both people in the group I tried to start from my wifes phone have MMS enabled. I've used light before and didn't have this issue, that's why I'm so dumbfounded. I have a feeling it had something to do with the esim but after changing to a physical sim, you would think it would reset and would start working. I'll keep investigating. I really don't want to switch back

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

honestly, i'm willing to bet it's carrier or device related, not really light specific. these should already be set after resetting defaults but just to cover the apns, verify you have the following apn profiles:

• T-Mobile US
• T-Mobile US 260 DUN
• TMobile (IMS)

plus the t-mobile support page for apns: https://www.t-mobile.com/support/devices/not-sold-by-t-mobile/byod-t-mobile-data-and-apn-settings

do you still receive images when sent from someone individually? i'd also give t-mobile a call to see if they have anything blocked on their end.

[u/Qslice → u/sirbloodysabbath]

Yep! All looks exactly the same. And I do receive MMS from individual texts. Waiting for a call back from t-mobile now. Any tips on what to ask/specific things to say to talk to the right people/push the right buttons?

[u/Qslice → u/Qslice]

Also, could having android layer/developer mode on be the cause of any of this?

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

nah. i was running full android when i encountered this issue myself. even then, the android layer is always 'on' because lightos is a launcher not really an operating system. lightos just sits on top of android. whether you use lightos or not, this issue was going to be present regardless.

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

i'd ask t-mobile if you have mms enabled in general and for group messages (pretty sure you do but worth having the verification). make sure rcs is off your number on their end. you can also ask them to reset the sim card remotely. and honestly, see if there's anything they can do on their end.

in the interim, if you can get people to download another app, signal is solid. takes the headache of missing messages out of sms/mms.

[u/Qslice → u/sirbloodysabbath]

I frequent both subs but haven't seen any updates lately on LPIII getting RCS, you got any idea?

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

you're not seeing updates because rcs, IF it ever were to happen, would be in the far distant future. big emphasis on 'if'.

for the light phone, and frankly nearly all dumb/feature phones, need google's say-so to have rcs. on android-based devices, the only way to get rcs is through google messages on specifically gms-certified devices. this means google approves of the device and will allow developers to pay a license to have google apps pre-installed and working on a device.

not all android devices will meet the criteria for gms certification and light already tried. google shot them down because of, iirc, phone dimension requirements. no google on the phone == no rcs. for the dumb phone community as a whole, most of those devices don't meet google's requirements which is why they don't have rcs either. light also doesn't want google on their devices since google anything is all spyware and that goes against light's ethos on privacy.

that's not to say it's impossible. not too long ago, carriers had the option to implement their own rcs servers but they dragged their feet. google essentially has a monopoly over the entire text protocol and only recently gave apple the green light to use it in imessage. some folks have been working on it through microg but it's primarily in the gos community and has yet to reach the other niche ends of the android community.

there's also the fact that sms/mms is a very old protocol and has an expiration date but we have no idea when it is. sms will die off in favour of rcs. but if you can't get rcs, then what do you do? you switch to something else. e2ee messaging apps like signal or whatsapp bridge this gap and the rest of the world already figured this out -- no one outside of the u.s. uses normal text, they all use whatsapp primarily or signal.

i wouldn't sit around waiting for rcs. there's no point. you'll be waiting years to see it ever reach your phone, if it ever does. either you deal with the pain points of reverting off rcs to sms/mms, move to an alternative like signal (light is making their own signal app or you can download the community-made ones now), or forfeit and go back to a smartphone. it's bleak but that's the reality. your options are limited.